Holding Hands with Heaven
by NonchalantxFish
Summary: Written for the 6th Round of the Pro-Bending Circuit. Rewriting A:tLA Season 1, Episode 18 "The Waterbending Master" (or a scene from) from a different point of view - Pakku's, in my case. Just kinda PakkuxKanna fluff, I guess. And Pakku-Angst. Lots of that. Whoops.


(song) Ashes of Eden by Breaking Benjamin

(smell) cinnamon

(prompt) Season 1 : Episode 18 "The Waterbending Master" (Pakku POV, waterbending duel scene)

(word count) 2,087 words

* * *

When they told her she'd disappeared, he hadn't been sure what to feel. Or what he _was_ feeling, for that matter. Men, young and old, clapped him on the back and told him they knew what he was feeling.

Like it darkness falling upon them, some said.

Like the air is growing thin, others claimed.

But they didn't know. Their women left them by illness or injury, by unfortunate circumstance or forceful separation. But Kanna left him by her _own will._

Hadn't everything been going so well?

Hadn't he felt like Heaven was taking his hand?

But then Kanna was _gone_ and he was left, _disgraced_ \- but more important than that, _heartbroken._ The love of his life, that piece of beautiful flame in the dark North, _had just left him._

 **SPLASH.**

"Fine." he says, "You want to learn to fight so bad? Study closely."

Anger. Let anger take him, fill him up. Gentility becomes ferocity, and delight becomes bitterness. Warm water freezes like the glacier around them, hopeful eyes narrow into jadedness. Let the anger fuel him, let it raise him above the others.

Because they _do not_ understand what shame he feels, that the woman he chose did not choose him back.

Rise and rise and rise, into the Master Waterbender that is now, that is real and breathing, that is fighting the foolish little girl with a piercing gaze and a fiery heart that makes him annoyed somehow. Why? He watches her movement, laughing at her.

Why should this girl, all full of hope, succeed where Kanna failed?

Yes . . . Kanna tried so hard. She tried to be his equal, when he wanted to place her behind veils and veils of snow to shield her from the world that belonged to men. To keep tradition, to keep her behind him, to keep her . . .

"Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you." he says.

Mockingly, but he means it. The girl is angry and immature. She's violating his culture because she is ignorant of it. That's why she's acting like a barbarian. So why . . . why did Kanna fight so, like this girl? Why did Kanna reject the old ways?

He had run out to the edge of the Northern Water Tribe territories, the only thing supporting his exhausted bending the rage and the shame and the love. He had stood on a tiny foothold of ice in the middle of the ocean, calling out to her - to Kanna.

" _It was our_ ** _promise_** _\- your promise_ ** _to be with me_** _through it all!_ " he had screamed to the empty ocean, " ** _You broke your promise!_** _"_

Kanna as he remembered her had beautiful hands. Her calligraphy was unmatched; it was her way of bending, she used to say defiantly. Her hands always smelled like ink and cinnamon - ink for the writing she did, cinnamon for the spices she grudgingly cooked with.

Grudgingly. He'd thought it was her way of being cute. How was he supposed to know that she didn't love cooking, as all women did?

The Southern girl is trapped in his ring of water, and he contracts it gradually, forcing her towards him. He was always better at close range. Better to feed his anger to, his bitterness to. Sixty years of experience, sixty years of work, are poured into this fight.

She bends a wave of water at him from the snow, he freezes it and watches her slide over it, jumping, landing. Off-balance, good to knock down; he breaks her frozen wave and returns it, not before seeing her lock her feet down into the ice to center herself. She effortlessly - it seems, but he sees the advanced forms in that technique - bends his attack away and around her.

Her back straightens. "You can't knock me down."

Kanna said that once. They'd been arguing - right, she wanted to participate in the Moonsong Festival. But it was a man's place, not her's. He told her as such, and she told him that. And the next morning she was gone.

Her and her smiles, her inner fire, her ink-stained hands, her cinnamon-smelling hair.

 _Ice._

It almost hits him, he sees his own reflection in it. It's been a while since he's looked in a mirror, but he focuses on the girl. Katara, was it? She's more skilled than he thought. But still, she attacks, water coiling around her and flying towards him, he mimicking the movement.

He knocks her down, returning her waterbending move more powerfully. She topples over, sighs out a white cloud, stands abruptly. He almost feels enjoyment; he's not sure what she'll do next. No student of his dares to spar with him anymore; he hasn't had a fight like this in years.

His last might've been the verbal one, with Kanna and her smell of cinnamon and ink.

But there's no such sweet scent now, as the decorative ice pillars are collapsed above him. It takes him by surprise; he superheats them in a second, ice melting to water freezing in small flurries of snow around him.

"Well, I'm impressed." he says, smiling. Mockingly it appears, he knows, but 60 years of bitterness has twisted his happiness into only that. "You are an excellent waterbender."

"But you still won't teach me, will you?" she asks, a mess.

 _"Stay with me, don't let me go - because there's nothing left at all!"_ he had screamed to the lonely ocean, to that cinnamon-smelling girl that had taken his heart and left him.

In a way, the other men were right.

It was darkness falling upon him. It was air growing thin. It was the light of the snow, pulling him in every direction. He could hear voices haunting. There was nothing left to fear. He was still calling, calling . . .

And she wasn't answering.

Nothing was worse. Nothing.

"NO!" he replies forcefully.

Ice rolls toward him, he lifts himself upon a pillar. Above her attack, above the pain, above it all. _That's how to deal with fear._ He slides across ice towards her - close range was best; even old, he could overpower the girl, and _that is why men are superior._

She lands on the ground, hair undone and heated with aggression, but he gives her no chance. Water spirals from the fountain, rising in the air, a sapphire dragon, swirling. His fingers contort, and he sends the water down upon her in ice blades. Careful not to hit her, of course.

He promised not to hurt her. He doesn't break promises. Not after the most important one he'd made was broken for him.

She struggles in vain. He walks towards her.

"This fight is over." he declares, proceeding to leave the girl there. It would be a good lesson to her, for trying to do what Kanna could not - for trying to shatter tradition like ice.

"Come back here! I'm not finished yet!" she shouts.

Cinnamon invades his senses. The memories have been so powerful lately; enough that he tries to find and isolate the scent, only to realize he'd just been remembering. He doesn't look back.

"Yes, you are."

 _I suppose we're betrothed now, Pakku. But this doesn't mean I'm any lesser than you!_

 _Of course, Kanna, ha ha . . ._

He thought she'd been joking. And truthfully, he hadn't been paying much attention. All he could register was her inky-cinnamon scent, his young fluttering heart, and the sight of his necklace on her neck. He'd spent weeks carving it for her, picturing the ivory in the hollow of her neck, and still it surprised him and had him blushing when he saw it.

His necklace, on Kanna's neck. His necklace, chucked at him during one of their many arguments. His necklace, as gone as she was. His necklace, lying on the ice before him, 60 years later.

"This is . . . my necklace." he says quietly, holding it in his hands; it weighs just as much as before.

"No, it's not! It's mine!" the girl screams, "Give it back!"

The ribbon is worn. But the ivory is in good shape. It looks like he might've carved it yesterday - he _knew_ the preserving seal-oil formula was a good idea.

"I made this 60 years ago!" he says, surprised. "For the . . . love of my life."

In his mind, she's wearing it again. Glaring because she's telling him that they will be _equals_ in marriage, but also glowing. Happiness, he knows; she's glad to have their binding contract around her neck. Their promise. As happy as he is, really.

"For Kanna." he sighs.

"My Gran-Gran was supposed to marry _you?_ " the girl - Katara - asks.

The memories are so strong now. Cinnamon and ink all around him, Kanna's scolding and yelling and laughing, the necklace _he_ made around _her_ neck. The empty ocean, the screaming his voice raw.

 _Why can't I hear you? Why can't I feel you?_

His eyes were blind and his chest was tight and his body was being ripped torn asunder by light, and all he could think about was _why_ Kanna left. Why she abandoned him.

"I carved this necklace for your grandmother when we got engaged." he said, looking up at the sky. It was the same as when she left. It had been the same for six decades. "I thought we would have a long and happy life together."

It was supposed to be that way. He would rise to his position as Master Waterbender with Kanna behind him. She would bear his children, raise them, love them, _love him._ They would argue, of course, because they always argued, but . . .

"I loved her." he nearly whimpered.

"But she didn't love you, did she? It was an arranged marriage."

Yes. But he'd requested it of her father. He'd begged him. Kanna was the only girl in the entire North who would butt heads with him. And that fire in her heart was what drew him to her, to her and her beautiful handwriting and cinnamon-scented hair and decisiveness and laughter.

"Gran-Gran wouldn't let your tribe's _stupid_ customs run her life. That's why she left! It must've taken a lot of courage . . ."

Courage? He tried to remember . . .

* * *

She had walked beside him with his necklace new on her throat. She'd been strangely quiet, but he couldn't stop smiling.

 _"_ This is like . . . _holding hands with heaven!"_ he'd said, looking at the stars.

"What?" she'd asked, finally speaking.

He then took her hands in his, excited. "I feel like I'm holding hands with heaven. You're _mine,_ now, Kanna!"

She whipped her hands away, then, glaring. "I don't belong to _anyone_ , Pakku, _least of all you._ "

True, she belonged to her father back then - but when they married . . . at least, that's what he remembered his younger self had been thinking at that moment.

He had smiled. "I'm sorry. I'm trying not to spoil today with arguments, Kanna. I just wanted to tell you that I was happy you're going to marry _me._ "

Kanna gave the smallest of beams. "You're a silly boy. I suppose we're betrothed now, Pakku. But this doesn't mean I'm any lesser than you!"

His young self only laughed. "Of course, Kanna!"

 _You're more than me. You're everything to me. Heaven above me, take my hand, because Kanna is wearing_ ** _my_** _necklace!_

* * *

 _Are you with me after all_

 _Why can't I hear you_

 _Are you with me through it all_

 _Then why can't I feel you_

 _Stay with me, don't let me go_

 _Because there's nothing left at all_

 _Stay with me, don't let me go_

 _Until the Ashes of Eden fall_

As he thought, his writing was never as nice as hers. And his poetry was garbage compared to the verses she scribbled on her cinnamon-stained arms. He'd always liked her writing; it was a very feminine hobby, the only thing she liked doing without (force) encouragement.

The paper tucked in his inside breast pocket, he gave it a pat. Surely, if she saw he was writing and rhyming for her, she'd know he had changed. That he loved her.

And if that didn't move Kanna, perhaps teaching her granddaughter all his tricks would.

"What do you think you're doing? It's past sunrise! You're late." he scolded, giving a smile that was not-so bitter anymore.

Katara smiled back, Kanna's necklace on her throat. It belonged there.

He pushed and pulled the water, and Katara mimicked, and his poem was in his pocket, and for a moment he felt he was holding hands with heaven again.

* * *

 **A/N:** Hey, thanks for reading, guys! The prompt was to recreate a certain episode's scene from the POV of another character, and since The Waterbending Master was one of my prompts, I HAD to do Pakku. I think it's freakin' heartbreaking; the poor guy was in love with the same woman for SIXTY YEARS. Good lord. And then he changed his entire view on culture and gender equality for her - views he was raised on. This guy might've pissed me off initially, but I really liked him. Don't forget le likes and reviews!


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